Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes: A Spatially Explicit Approach to Support Sustainable Soil Management

Abstract EN

Soil degradation has been associated with a lack of adequate consideration of soil ecosystem services.

We demonstrate a broadly applicable method for mapping changes in the supply of two priority soil ecosystem services to support decisions about sustainable land-use configurations.

We used a landscape-scale study area of 302 km2 in northern Victoria, south-eastern Australia, which has been cleared for intensive agriculture.

Indicators representing priority soil services (soil carbon sequestration and soil water storage) were quantified and mapped under both a current and a future 25-year land-use scenario (the latter including a greater diversity of land uses and increased perennial crops and irrigation).

We combined diverse methods, including soil analysis using mid-infrared spectroscopy, soil biophysical modelling, and geostatistical interpolation.

Our analysis suggests that the future land-use scenario would increase the landscape-level supply of both services over 25 years.

Soil organic carbon content and water storage to 30 cm depth were predicted to increase by about 11% and 22%, respectively.

Our service maps revealed the locations of hotspots, as well as potential trade-offs in service supply under new land-use configurations.

The study highlights the need to consider diverse land uses in sustainable management of soil services in changing agricultural landscapes.